


The Ever-Living Ghost Of What Once Was

by lisachan



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 05:28:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6143005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa touches Clarke, but all Clarke can think about are different hands, different fingers, a different skin, different shapes moving against her. And how painful that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ever-Living Ghost Of What Once Was

**Author's Note:**

> I am in SUCH PAIN. *cries*

Lexa’s fingers close around her wrists, immobilizing her, and all Clarke can feel is the cold steel of the handcuffs Bellamy used on her when he tried to capture her back in Arkadia.

She looks at her intently, her clear green eyes fixed upon her as she travels down her body leaving a trail of wet kisses behind, and all Clarke can see are darker eyes, a darker gaze, as Bellamy kneels before her and looks up, holding her hands. Their silent conversation. That brief smile. 

The burning sense of betrayal when she got that he wasn’t trying to make peace, but start a war.

Not with just the Grounders, with _her_.

Lexa dives between her thighs, presses hot kisses against her flesh and Clarke clutches her legs around her head, shaking with pleasure. Lexa’s cheeks are soft and smooth, and all Clarke thinks about are rougher cheeks, rougher skin, Bellamy’s jaw, its strength, its squareness, how firm it felt under her lips when she kissed him goodbye before leaving Camp Jaha. His eyes when he looked at her a few steps from the gates, a few steps from home, a home Clarke was about to refuse. “Look, if you need forgiveness, I’ll give that to you. You’re forgiven. Please, come inside. You don’t have to do this alone.”

How saying goodbye felt like tearing a limb off with her own hands. She had lost so much already. And yet it felt as if she could still lose something else. And it still hurt. Pain hadn’t made her impervious to more pain. And yet there she was, thinking scarred tissue couldn’t hurt much.

Lexa stops playing with her, leaving her shivering and unsatisfied. She travels back towards her mouth and kisses her, and Clarke closes her eyes and wraps her arms around her neck and kisses her back, tasting herself on her tongue, but something goes wrong, something disconnects, and her taste disappears, and Lexa’s too. Suddenly there’s no taste anymore, there’s thin lips she never bit, a mouth she never kissed, Bellamy’s smirking and he plays with her, finally you fell, princess, he mocks her, and then his voice turns serious, I’ve been waiting for this so long, Clarke, too long, and Clarke can’t control herself anymore, can’t control her thoughts, her fantasies, they wander freely like wild beasts and she tries wrangling them, but to no avail. They bite with teeth sharp as blades, strong arms, strong hands, and isn’t Lexa strong enough, anyway?, aren’t her prying fingers already more resolved, more determined than any fingers that ever touched her?, isn’t her conquering spirit hard enough, isn’t her obstinate gaze too much already? Why does she need more?, why does her body keep aching for something that’s not here?, what is she pining for?, what does she want?

Lexa touches her fiercely, her fingers slipping inside her fast, too fast, maybe, and Clarke arches her back, muffling a yell against the back of her hand. She bites down, swinging her hips as Lexa kisses her down her neck, sucks at her skin, leaves sweet bruises that Clarke already knows will disappear in but a few days, but what Bellamy did, no, what Bellamy _is_ impressed upon her a mark that will never disappear, because it’s already invisible. And it wasn’t his betrayal, and it wasn’t his help when things got straightened down between them, and it wasn’t the way he kept pushing her before, or the rival he was when they first landed, no, it’s the way they grew up together, how their soul at some point decided to intertwine, how she’s learned that depending on someone isn’t bad if that someone’s got your back, how he’s learned that weakness isn’t a flaw when you show it to someone who can understand where it’s coming from and how to respect it. 

Bellamy’s soul beat her own up. That beating cracked a wound that’s never healed. Invisible blood spilling out of it both when they’re together and when they’re apart. The torn strips of flesh have come together, in time, fixing themselves up on their own, and what was an open slit is now thicker skin, rough like rawhide – these kinds of brands never disappear.

Clarke lets out a deeper moan, coming hard, losing herself completely for a moment. This was so wrong, and she shouldn’t have done it. She’s being unfair – dishonest – Lexa, though she’s probably never been completely honest with her for one day since they’ve been together, doesn’t deserve this. Clarke could trick her about politics, could manipulate her into trying to save her people any day, but she doesn’t wanna lie to her between the sheets. No one deserves that. No one deserves that kind of mockery.

Feeling guilty, when Lexa withdraws and drops on her back beside her she tries to give back what she’s been gifted. She turns around and tries to kiss her, tries to touch her through her clothes, but Lexa turns away, closing her eyes, tension building underneath her skin – Clarke can feel it, she detests herself for causing it. “Don’t,” she says, “You don’t need to.”

“But I want to,” she tries in a whisper, but Lexa turns to look at her, she glares at her, fury swelling like the ocean during a storm in her pale green eyes.

“Don’t lie to me, Clarke,” she says sternly, “That’s the only thing I ask of you. Respect at least that.”

Biting at her bottom lip, Clarke pulls back, looking down, feeling ashamed. “I’m sorry,” she says. She means it. Lexa knows.

She indulges her with a patient sigh, almost motherly, that makes Clarke feel even more ashamed with herself. “You’re miles away from where we are,” she says softly, “Miles away from me. Tell me why.”

Clarke swallows, passing a hand over her face. She’s so tired, and she feels so alone. “I miss home,” she says. That’s as much truth as she can let out without hurting herself too bad. At the core of it, there’s that. Bellamy’s been a link to whatever idea of a true home she could cling to while home was a wrecked camp in the middle of nothing, with weak, young roots planted on hostile ground. When the beds were uncomfortable, when there was no food, no warmth, no hopes for the future, when living was just a struggle to survive the day and maybe see the dawn of a new one, Bellamy was the chest inside which Clarke could hide her hidden treasure, the promise of a better life to come. He’s more than just a person, at this point. He’s turned into the only thing Clarke needs to keep believing. If everything else should fail, as long as she has Bellamy she can keep fighting.

And even now, she simply can’t believe that’s not true anymore. Even after seeing with her own eyes the effect of the cut that severed her ties with Bellamy, even after seeing the carnage and destruction he chose to have a part in to let her know what they’ve built means nothing to him anymore, even after the handcuffs and his rough hands dragging her towards the new Chancellor’s office, she just can’t let go of that hope. That if she manages to come home. And meet him again. Just by looking at him in his eyes. She could reach him.

(She could get him back.)

“You could go home,” Lexa says, her voice vibrant with something Clarke can’t easily translate. She turns to look at her and finds her staring at the ceiling, her features tense and frighteningly still, as if she was fighting against herself to keep her true feelings hidden.

Yes, Clarke thinks, she could. She could go home, and then what? She’s an enemy to her people, now. She’s an enemy to Bellamy. If he kept bouncing her back, she’d see her hopes crumble to dust, and if those hopes are gone, what will be left of her? She can’t give him a chance to destroy her, right now. She needs to stay away. Get stronger. One day, she’ll be ready to face him again. And then she’ll remind him. What it meant to work together – to _be_ together, fighting for a common goal.

Until then, she’ll have to keep hiding under the cloak of Lexa’s unwilling sweetness. 

She moves closer to her, pressing her face against her shoulder. “Can you hug me?” she asks, though she knows she’s playing her again, because it’s not weakness what she’s showing right now, but a crude, selfish need to feel protected. 

Lexa knows that, but she doesn’t pull back. She wraps her arms around her, kisses her on her forehead. “Sleep now, Wanheda,” she whispers softly, pulling her in, blessing her with darkness, “It will all be alright.”

As she closes her eyes, Clarke thinks that Lexa’s lying to her too. But she deserves it. So that’s okay.


End file.
